Tom Curtis to Board member Mary Ann Flannagan: Thank you

Hello Mary Ann,

Thank you for taking the time to stop and chat with both my wife and I during the retreat and recent board meetings. It is comforting to know that you are highly concerned about the many issues confronting the membership, the more you become acquainted with the workings of the STRS.

As a disability retiree, I am still considered to be an active member and as such, am represented by definition, by the five active teacher board members. Those are the only board members I am permitted to vote for, even though I consider myself to be a retiree.

I found I do have an email address that is different from the one you provided me with on Friday. That address was [xxx]. I am not sure where I obtained that address from, but I received it during election time last year. It may be your home address, as I believe you had indicated that you were rarely at home due to your father's illness at the time and indicated it was better to call you then it was to email you.

Anyway, I am most appreciative that you are willing to correspond with me, as I still have many questions and concerns about the whole process at the STRS. I am sure you do as well.

I was an industrial arts/technology education teacher at the high school level for my entire 27 years of teaching. I have a lifetime background in this area. Because of my training I have a lifetime background of needing and searching for knowledge and/or information, so I can make choices, recommendations and take action based upon that knowledge and information, to the best of my abilities.

After three years of regularly attending board meetings, chairing some of the monthly CORE/STRS executive staff meetings, constant correspondence with STRS executive staff, minimal with OEA & OFT leadership, ORTA leadership and members, legislators, Ohio government officials and many others, I am still in a quandary as to why the STRS finds itself in the financial position it is in today.

We are being told that we must rely on the investment staff and non-investment support staff to keep us afloat. If they do not perform as needed, it would appear our pension system is doomed. I am very uneasy to know that as much as 78% of our funds are locked into the stock market, because if this country would go into a major recession, our pensions would be in jeopardy. At least this is my perception, though it may be wrong. Right now I am worried about where the membership stands? We appear to be so totally dependent on the staff, that we are threatened to either increase their wages or they will leave us and move on to greener pastures. I do not like this scenario. All the STRS management has ever had to do is take our dedicated flow of income and invest it wisely, so the returns would provide for what had been promised; a pension and health care. No other industry is that fortunate to just simply have a dedicated flow of income without having to do anything for it. Until five or six years ago that dedicated flow of income has covered the entire overhead of the system and has been solvent. Now, we are told that has changed and will no longer be the case. Consequently, we have now found out that teachers worked all of those years relying on nothing more then a myth. We were told by our local and state unions that teachers did not make much income during their working years, but that they would be secure and financially able to live the rest of their lives in relative comfort, considering that we worked for much lower then private industry wages.

Mary Ann, I will help in whatever way I can to help establish a meeting process by which the membership can speak with board members face to face. Correspondence is one method, but often does not provide the true meaning, or spirit of what one has to say about their concerns. This need is certainly unprecedented, as Terri Bierdeman brought out during the retreat, as most of the past years have been good years and the membership had little to no concerns.

Retirees now find themselves in the position of having lost health care benefits we thought were promised and would be delivered; concerns are very heightened.

It appears the issue of grandfathering is dead. I am thoroughly saddened by that fact, as I have found my pension to have been reduced by one third today, not knowing what that effect will be in the future. Further, the thought of what we will do for health care in 2018, when the HCSF is scheduled to run dry is of great importance and the STRS has provided no comfort, only fears.

All I ever hear about by attending the board meetings and staying involved is the continued needed for increases in the cost of operation of the STRS. They seem to feel that is always justified, when the retirees are receiving little to no consideration. That to my understanding was the reason for establishing the STRS was to benefit the retiree, but from my viewpoint, that is not happening and I do not understand why? That answer has been elusive for the three years I have been consistently involved. Maybe I expect something here I will never receive. I am beginning to feel this will be the end result. You are yet to retire, but once you do, you will find just how quickly you become a person of little concern to those who are still actively working and are now the care taker of your retirement funds. I would never have expected such, but that is the experience I have found. You were endorsed and supported to become a board member by a union. One you have dedicated much time and effort to throughout your career. I have no idea how the OFT treats its retirees, as I belonged to the OEA, but the OEA has treated me as though I were already dead once I retired, as I am no longer providing the OEA with any income. I have no voice. I do not even believe the OEA-R members have much of a voice, as they provide little income to the OEA. This is a union mentality and one the leadership should recognize, if they were truly concerned about their membership.

I paid dues to the OEA faithfully, each year during my entire career. Yet when I contacted the OEA leadership about the abuses at the STRS, they completely ignored me. That is abusive and unacceptable treatment.

Consequently, I have taken every opportunity to offer my negative feelings about the OEA to every active member I can reach. I will continue to do so, because they have let me down and not supported my needs at this point in my life, when I feel I have needed them the most.

Thank you for listening and taking my concerns into consideration when you vote your conscious at the STRS.

Sincerely,

Tom Curtis
CORE Advisory Committee Member